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“I do not know,” Damon said sadly, “nor do I know if they will accept it now. It threatens what they

have been taught, makes their sacrifices and their suffering useless, an act of folly.”

And he felt a clutch of pain at his heart, knowing that in what he did, as with all great discoveries, therewere the seeds of bitter conflict. Men and women would die to champion one or the other side in thisgreat struggle, and he knew, with a great surge of anguish, that a daughter of his own, with the face andthe name of a flower, a daughter born to him by neither of these women here in this room, would bebrutally murdered for daring to try to bring this knowledge into Arilinn itself. Mercifully the knowledgeblurred again; the time was
 
now
 
, and he dared not concern himself with past or future.

“Arilinn, as all the other Towers, is locked into a decision our forefathers made. They may have been guided by reasons which were valid then, but are not valid now. I am not forcing the Tower circles to abandon their choice, if it is truly their choice and if, after knowing the cost, knowing there is now an alternative, they choose to keep to their own ways. But I want them to know that there
 
is
 
an alternative, that if I, working alone and outcast, have found one alternative, then there may be others, dozens of others, and some of these others might even be more acceptable to them than the one I have found. But I am claiming the right, for myself and my circle, to work in my own way, under such laws as seem right and proper to us.”

It seemed so simple and so rational. How could others threaten them with death or mutilation for that?

Yet Callista knew that they had threatened and they would carry out the threat.

Andrew said to Ellemir, “I am not concerned for you, but I wish I could be sure this would not threatenyour child.”

He knew he had hit on Ellemir’s own fear. But she said steadfastly, “Do you trust Damon or not? If he

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felt there was danger, he would have explained it to me, and let me make the choice in full knowledge.”

“I trust him.” But, Andrew wondered, did Damon simply feel that if they lost the coming battle it would be useless for any of them to survive anyway, including Ellemir and the baby? Firmly he cut off that line of thought. Damon was their Keeper. Andrew’s only responsibility was to decide whether or not Damon was worthy of trust and then to trust him and follow his directives, without mental reservations. So he asked, “What do we do first?”

“We build the Tower, and we establish it firmly with all our strength. It has been there for a long time, but it is what we imagine it to be.” He added to Ellemir, “You have never been in the overworld; you have only kept watch for me here. Link with me, and I will bring you there.”

With a strong mental thrust he was in the overworld, Ellemir beside him in the featureless grayness. Dimly at first, but with more clarity moment by moment in the overlight, he could make out the shelteringwalls of their landmark.

At first it had been a rude shelter, like a herdsman’s hut, visualized almost accidentally. But with eachsuccessive use it had grown and strengthened, and now a true, declared Tower rose around them, withgreat lucent blue-shining walls, as real to his touch and step as the room in Comyn Castle where they hadconsummated their fourfold bond. Indeed they had brought much of that world with them, because, Damon thought, the fourfold bond and its completion was in a way the most important thing that had everhappened to any of them.

As always in the overworld he felt taller, stronger, more confident, which was the essence of it all. Ellemir, at his side, did not resemble Callista nearly as much as she did in the solid world. Physically, sheand Callista were very much alike, but here where the mind determined the physical appearance, theywere very unlike. Damon knew enough of genetics to wonder briefly if they were not identical twins afterall. If they were not, it might mean that Callista could bear him a child without as much risk as Ellemir. Butthat was a thought for another time, another level of consciousness.

After an instant Callista and Andrew joined them in the overworld. He noticed that Callista had notclothed herself in the crimson robe of a Keeper. As the thought reached her she smiled and said, “I leavethat office to you, Damon.”

For a duel between Keepers, perhaps he should be clothed in the ritual crimson sacrosanct to a Keeper,but he shrank from the blasphemy and suddenly knew why.

He would not fight this battle by Arilinn’s laws! He was not Keeper by their cruel life-denying laws, buthe was
 
tenerézu
 
of an older tradition, defending his right to be so! He would wear the colors of his Domain and no more.

Andrew took up the stance of a paxman or bodyguard, just two steps behind him. Damon reached for Ellemir’s hand on his right, for Callista’s on his left, felt their fingertips lightly as a touch in the overworldalways felt. He said in a low voice, “The sun rises over our Tower. Feel its strength around us. We built ithere for shelter. Now it must stand here, not only for us, but as a symbol for all matrix mechanics whorefuse the cruel constraints of the Towers, a shelter and a beacon for all those who will come after us.”

It seemed to Andrew, although the lucent blue walls of the Tower rose around him, that he could see thesun of the overworld
 
through
 
its walls. Callista had once explained it to him:

In the world of the overlight, where they were now, there was no such thing as darkness, because the

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light did not come from a solid sun. It came from the energy-net body of the sun, which could shine right through the energy-net body of the planet. To Andrew the red sun was enormous, a pale rim rising beyond and somehow
 
through
 
the Tower, shedding scattered crimson light, dripping bloody clouds.

Lightning flared around them, blinding them, and for a moment it seemed that the Tower rocked,trembled, that the very fabric of the overworld shook into grayness.
 
It has come
 
Damon thought, theattack they awaited. Strongly linked to one another, they felt the Tower’s walls strong and shelteringaround them, while Damon flicked an explanation to Andrew and Ellemir, less experienced than himself.

They will try to destroy the Tower, but since it is our
visualization
 
of the Tower which holds it firmhere, they cannot budge it unless our own perception of it falters
 
.

One of the games of technicians in training was to fight duels in jest in the overworld, where thethought-stuff was endlessly pliable and all of their constructs could be wiped out with a thought as quicklyas they had been brought into being. Although he knew it was only an illusion, Damon still felt a purelyirrational twinge of physical fright as lightning bolt after lightning bolt struck the Tower, seeming to shakeit with deafening thunderclaps. This could be a dangerous game, for whatever happened to theastral-world body could also happen, by repercussion, to the physical self. But behind the walls of their Tower they were safe.

They cannot harm us. And I do not want to harm them, only to be safe with my friends
… but heknew they would not accept that. Sooner or later the endless attack from outside must weaken them. Hisonly defense was to attack.

As quickly as thought they were standing together on the highest battlement of their Tower. To Andrewit felt like rock beneath his feet. He was clothed, as always in the over-world, in the grayish silvery fabricof a Terran Empire uniform, and as he became aware of it, he felt it alter.
 
No, I am really not Terrannow
 
. He realized, with just a flicker of consciousness, that he was wearing the saddle-rubbed leatherbreeches and the furred riding jacket he wore for work around the estate. Well, that was now his truestself; he
 
belonged
 
to Armida now.

As they stood at the top of the Tower they could see the loom of Arilinn, like a flaming beacon. How, Damon wondered, had it come so near? Then he realized it was the visualization of Leonie and her circle,who had spoken of the forbidden Tower as built on their very threshold. To Damon it had seemed verydistant, worlds away. But now they were close together, so close that he could
see
 
Leonie, acrimson-veiled statue, grasp handfuls of plastic thought-stuff and hurl lightning. Damon struck it in midairwith his own lightning, saw it explode, crash over the circle standing on the pinnacle of Arilinn, saw acrack in the fortress Tower of Arilinn.

They perceive us as a threat to them! Why?

Only a moment, and the thunder was crashing around them again, a fierce duel of lightning bolts, hurledand intercepted, and he felt a random thought—it must be Andrew’s—
 
I feel like Jove hurling histhunders
 
. He wondered with an infinitesimal fragment of his consciousness who or what Jove was.

I can batter down the Tower of Arilinn, because for some reason they are afraid of us
. But Leonieabruptly changed her tactics. The lightnings died and they were suddenly smothering, drowning as a rainof sickening slime cascaded over them, suffocating them, making them retch with disgust. Like dung,semen, horse manure, the trails left by the slugs who invaded the greenhouse in a wet season… they weredrowning in foulness.
 
Is this how they see what we have done
 
? Damon struggled to clear his mind ofsickness, wiping his face free of the—No, that was to give it reality. Quickly, linking hands and minds

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with his circle, he thickened the slime, made it the richness of fertilized soil, let it fall from their bodies until from its rich depths flowers and growing things sprang up, covering the roof of the Tower where they stood in the rioting life of an early spring blooming. They stood triumphant in the field of flowers, reaffirming life out of ugliness.

I fought the Great Cat from outside the Tower, and I triumphed
. As if to affirm the act which hadbrought him the awareness of his own psi power, undiminished by the years he had spent outside the Tower, he called up the Great Cat, pouring their linked minds into the image, sending it out to hover overthe heights of Arilinn.
 
While the Great Cat ravaged the Kilghard Hills and brought darkness andterror and hunger to all our people, you sat safe in Arilinn and you did nothing to help them
 
!

The two Towers stood now so close that he could see Leonie’s face
 
through
 
her veil, shining withwrath and despair. In the overworld, Damon thought detachedly, she was still as beautiful as she hadever been. But he could see her for only a moment, for her face vanished in a swirling darkness whichwiped out sight of her circle. Where Leonie had stood, a dragon reared upward, roaring and breathingflame. Golden-scaled, golden-clawed, towering to the sky above Arilinn, its fire showered down on theforbidden Tower. Damon felt the blistering heat, felt as if his body were crisping and withering in the fire,heard Callista cry out in agony, felt Ellemir’s terror, and for a moment wondered if Leonie must succeedafter all in driving them from the overworld, forcing them back into their physical bodies…

But with the flame he also felt the awareness of a legend in Andrew’s mind:
 
Burn us and we will riseagain like a phoenix from the ashes
 
… Reaching with all his last strength through the fire and theburning which threatened to drive them all from the overworld, Damon linked them closer still. Togetherthey poured all their psychic force into the shifting stuff of the overworld, linking into a giant bird, feathersblazing, burning up in the ecstatic union which consumed them, their four linked minds joined. In Andrew’s mind Damon felt them curled naked together, inside a darkness, inside an unhatched egg, whilethe flames wholly consumed them, burned them down into ash. Then, in an ever-expanding ecstasy, theshell around them broke and they burst upward from the ashes, spreading mighty wings in a single, linkedburst of flaming energy, soaring over Arilinn, triumphant… From the phoenix beak came thunder,lightning, shaking and rumbling the Tower of Arilinn. Damon saw, as if far below, the small forms of Leonie and her circle, watching in despair and dread.

Leonie! You cannot destroy us! I ask truce.

Damon knew that he did not wish to destroy Arilinn. It had been his home. He had suffered thereunendurably, as Callista had suffered, yet he had been trained there too, disciplined, taught to use theutmost strength and control. His training in Arilinn was at the basis of what he was now, of what he mighteventually become. Arilinn should stand forever, in overworld and real world, a home for telepaths, asymbol of what Tower training had been and might some day be again. The strength and power of the Domains.

But Leonie’s voice was shaken, almost inaudible. “No, Damon, strike us down. Destroy us utterly, asyou have destroyed all we stand for.”

“No, Leonie.” And now, suddenly, they stood facing one another on the gray plain of the overworld. And he knew— and knew that Leonie shared the thought—that he could never harm her. He loved her, had always loved her, would always love her.

“And I love you too,” Callista said tenderly at his side. She stretched her hands to Leonie, then, as she had never done in the real world, she took Leonie in her arms, holding the woman against her in a tender, loving embrace. “But Leonie, my beloved foster-mother, can you not see what it is that Damon has